Bakker nodded at the leader—a thin, muscular man, with a fuzzy black beard and mustache—who displayed a variety of Nordic symbols tattooed on his arms, but nothing that would have impressed the average NBA player. Bakker said, “How you doin’, Jim? . . . Virgil, this is Jim Button.”

“What’s up, Darren?”

As the others came up, Bakker said Virgil was a BCA agent, and Virgil said, “You heard about those people in town getting shot, right? Apparently with a .223, and we’ve been told that you folks have a bunch of .223s, and a grudge against the town. I’m checking to see if you can tell me where you were on Saturday around four-fifteen, and about the same time the Saturday before that.”

“Wouldn’t you fuckin’ know it?” Jim Button asked the air. “Somebody gets shot, so who’re you gonna blame? The National Socialists.” He turned to his friends. “Can you believe this?”

Both the women who’d come out of the house had dark hair, but only one had swastikas on her earlobes. The other was prettier and had a dime-sized black rose tattooed on one side of her neck. She said, “I can tell you where I was the day before yesterday. I was at work, from three ’til nine, over in Austin. Raleigh dropped me off at three, and then he hung around for a while, bullshitting with my boss.”

“Trying to get a cleaning job over there, after closing,” Raleigh Good said. “You can call up Bob and ask him.”

“So what time did you leave there?” Virgil asked.

“About four.”

“You were bullshitting with the boss for an hour?” Bakker asked. “That’s a lot of bullshit.”

“Wasn’t all bullshit,” Good said. “We were talking about how I wouldn’t be an employee, I’d be my own business, and I’d have to provide my own equipment and supplies; we also talked about what needed to be cleaned every day and what needed it once or twice a week. There was a lot of bullshit, but it wasn’t bullshitting, if you see what I mean.”

“About four o’clock, then.”

“At least. No way to get back to Wheatfield and set up and shoot somebody. And I didn’t have a gun with me—ask Rose.”

“He didn’t have a gun,” Rose said. “They got two of them, and I saw both of them, in the rack, before we left.”

Raleigh said, “See?”

Virgil asked Rose, “Where do you work?”

“Bob’s Spinners and Bells,” she said. “It’s a gym. I’m a spinning instructor.”

Button said, “I was at an assembly plant over in Albert Lea, looking for work.”

“On a Saturday?”

“Weekend work. You can call and ask.”

The clothesline lady said, “They had both cars. Me’n Marie stay home when they’re all gone.”

Virgil asked, “Do you have WiFi out here?”